Water and Dam Information

Tamworth’s main water supplies

The majority of the Tamworth’s water comes from Chaffey Dam which has a capacity of 100 gigalitres and sits about 44km south of the city on the Peel River.

Tamworth also has a supplementary supply from Dungowan Dam which has a capacity of 6.3 gigalitres and lies 56km south east of the city.

Council has high security licenses to use 16.4 gigalitres at Chaffey Dam, and 5.6 gigalitres at Dungowan Dam, to be used for the Tamworth supply. During emergencies and severe drought Tamworth is also able to supplement its intake from the Drift Wells adjacent to the Peel River.

Water supplies in the region’s towns and villages

Apart from the large Chaffey and Dungowan Dams that service Tamworth, the towns and villages of the region have their own water supplies:

Area

Water Supply

Barraba

Split Rock Dam

Bendemeer

MacDonald River

Nundle

Peel River / Nundle Bore / Crawney Road Bore

Manilla

Namoi River / Manilla River

Moonbi-Kootingal

Tamworth supply via pipeline

Attunga

Attunga Bores

Tamworth

Chaffey Dam / Dungowan Dam

* At the ordinary Council meeting of 8 May 2018 it was agreed that town water will be provided to Kootingal and Moonbi from the Tamworth
water system permanently.

Our region has clean healthy water

Council works hard to provide clean, safe, healthy water through a careful treatment process. Tamworth’s water from both dams and the drift wells is treated at the Calala Treatment Plant.

The regional towns and villages have their own treatment facilities.

The interesting history of our region’s water

For thousands of years the indigenous peoples of the Tamworth region, the Kamilaroi, took their water from the different rivers and waterholes in the area. Early European settlers used buckets to scoop and carry water from the Peel River.

As the population grew and the area became a pastoral and agricultural centre, water demand increased and more reliable water supplies were needed.

In 1881, Tamworth Council built its first public water supply. This was a well, about seven metres deep, from which 22,000 litres an hour were pumped into a large overhead tank. Water carriers could then fill their tanks for home delivery.

By 1898 a small dam was completed at Moore Creek. Unfortunately, the amount of silt that built up behind the wall made the dam useless in just twelve years. Following this, a series of drift wells were built on the Peel River Flats to supply the town with water.

Dungowan Dam was completed in 1958 and became the first major water storage facility for Tamworth. But as the population continued to grow, larger water storage was needed.

In 1980 Chaffey Dam and the Water Treatment Plant were completed as part of the Tamworth Water Supply Scheme. This produced large volumes of clean, healthy water available for consumption by Tamworth residents.

In 2016, under a project funded by all three levels of government, Chaffey Dam was augmented to increase its capacity to 100 gigalitres.